Spanish Unions Demand Vote on Cuts as 65,000 March in Madrid

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Spanish union leaders demanded
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy test support for his budget cuts in
a referendum as 65,000 protesters took to the streets of Madrid.

Comisiones Obreras General Secretary Ignacio Fernandez Toxo
called on Rajoy to put his austerity policies to Spanish voters
after the premier broke election pledges.

“It’s time to give a voice to the people again,” Toxo
told the demonstration as protesters blocked the center of
Madrid. “With the support of the people we will take this as
far as the government wants us to. This doesn’t end here.”

Rajoy is facing a growing backlash in Spain as he tries to
push through sufficient budget cuts to meet the European Union’s
deficit targets. His opponents say his policies, which have
included cuts in education and health spending as well as a tax
amnesty on savings held offshore, have hurt poorer Spaniards
while protecting the elite.

“The government is aware it is asking Spanish society for
sacrifices, but those sacrifices are absolutely unavoidable in
order to correct the situation,” Economy Minister Luis de
Guindos said at a press conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, where he
met euro-area finance ministers yesterday.

Flag-waving demonstrators began setting off firecrackers
just after dawn in the Spanish capital and by midday they were
thronging the streets around Plaza Colon in the center of the
city. A spokesman for the national government’s Madrid
delegation, who asked not to be identified in line with official
policy, said the number of demonstrators reached 65,000 at the
height of the protest.

Territorial ‘Tensions’

Today’s demonstration followed a march in Barcelona on
Sept. 11 when more than a million people called for Catalonia,
the biggest regional economy, to be granted independence from
Spain. The region requested a 5 billion-euro ($6.6 billion)
bailout package last month and regional leader Artur Mas is
demanding the region be allowed to keep more of the tax revenue
it generates.

“This chamber should take note of what happened yesterday
in Barcelona and what will probably happen in Madrid this
Saturday,” opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told the
Spanish Parliament on Sept. 12. “We are seeing increasing
territorial and social tensions that this chamber cannot
ignore.”

The government has introduced more than 100 billion euros
of tax increases and spending cuts as it struggles to meet its
deficit target for this year. De Guindos told his European
colleagues yesterday that Spain is ready to make more reductions
if necessary.

Rajoy is trying to cool voters’ anger over his decision to
break pledges he made before November’s general election. In a
television interview last week he said voters had given him a
mandate to boost growth and create jobs and he hoped he could
reverse tax increases before the 2015 election.

“Those groups, men and women, who voted for the PP have a
right to know why they abandoned the program on which they
ran,” Toxo said.